We'll have a decision before nightfall. Have the underwriters appointed
a contractor for the repairs?
They've called for tenders. The hotel manager himself met Nicholas
under the entrance portico.
Good to see you again Mr. Berg. He waived the registration procedures.
We can do that when Mr. Berg has settled in., And then he assured Nick,
We have given you the same suite. Nick would have protested, but
already they were ushering him into the sitting-room. If it had been a
room lacking completely in character or taste, the memories might not
have been so poignant. However, unlike one of those soulless plastic
and vinyl coops built by the big chains and so often offered to
travellers under the misnomer of inns', this room was furnished with
antique furniture, oil-paintings and flowers. The memories were as
fresh as those flowers, but not as pleasing. The telephone was ringing
as they entered, and Larry Fry seized it immediately, while Nick stood
in the centre Of the room. It had been two years since last he stood
here, but it seemed as many days, so clear was the memory.
The Harbour Master as given permission for Golden Adventurer to enter
harbour., Larry Fry grinned triumphantly at Nick, and gave him the
thumbs-up signal.
Nick nodded, the news was an anti-climax after the draining endeavours
of the last weeks. Nick walked through to the bedroom. The wallpaper
was a quietly tasteful floral design with matching curtains.
From the four-poster bed, Nick remembered, you could look out over the
lawns. He remembered Chantelle sitting under that canopy, with a
gossamer-sheer bed-robe over her creamy shoulders, eating thin strips of
marmaladed toast and then delicately and carefully licking each slim
tapered finger with a pink pointed tongue.
Nicholas had come out to negotiate the transportation of South African
coal from Richards Bay, and iron ore from Saldanha Bay to Japan. He had
insisted that Chantelle accompany him. Perhaps he had the premonition
of imminent loss, but he had overridden her objections.
But Africa is such a primitive place, Nicky, they have things that
bite., And she had in the end gone with him. He had been rewarded with
four days of rare happiness. The last four days ever, for though he did
not then even suspect it, he was already sharing her bed and body with
Duncan Alexander. He had never tired in thirteen years of that lovely
smooth creamy body; rather, he had delighted in its slow luscious
ripening into full womanhood, believing without question that it
belonged to him.
Chantelle was one of those unusual women who grew more beautiful with
time; it had always been one of his pleasures to watch her enter a room
filled with other internationally acclaimed beauties, and see them pale
beside his wife. And suddenly, for no good reason, he imagined Samantha
Silver beside Chantelle - the girl's coltish grace would be transmuted
to gawkiness beside Chantelle's poise, her manner as gauche as a
schoolgirl's beside Chantelle's mature control, a warm lovable little
bunny beside the sleekly beautiful mink Mr. Berg, London. Larry Fry
called from the sittingroom interrupting him, and with relief Nick
